[Oacrao-l] State Regents Follow-Up

[Foster, Kyle]

Good afternoon, OACRA colleagues.

I want to thank you again for letting me present to you earlier this week.  Being able to talk to folks who live where the rubber meets the road is always a treat for me!  I know that Janet has already sent out my slide deck, but I wanted to follow up on a couple of items from the meeting.


  1.  Recording credit from ACE recommendations

After the meeting, an OACRAO member was gracious enough to share with me an example of how ACE is now reporting credit recommendations.  For anyone who may be unfamiliar, ACE has begun utilizing the Credly Acclaim platform instead of sending transcripts.  I looked into the matter and I'm confident that the platform is secure and that the integrity of ACE credit recommendations remain intact.  The State Regents are actually working on a project to utilize Credly Acclaim to issue microcredentials to students.  Brad Griffith, Director of Online Learning Initiatives in our office, walked me through how Credly Acclaim takes measures to ensure that credentials listed on the platform are secure.  In fact, based on what I have learned, it would be much more difficult to forge a credential on Credly Acclaim than it would be to create a fake ACE PDF transcript.  For anyone who may not have seen a credential on the platform, it can be verified each time the page is opened.  So although the paper trail has changed, I'm confident that ACE's new way of issuing credit recommendations is secure.



  1.  Acceptance of transfer credit

I received a couple of follow-up emails on this topic and I understand that there is still some trepidation about how to handle credit from formerly-nationally and formerly-regionally accredited institutions.  Personally, I would have much preferred that they would have remained as national and regional accreditors, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed and we have to match the USDE's expectations.  My advice is that we have to leave behind the mindset of regional and national accreditors and shift to the mindset of HLC and any other institutional accreditors.  I also urge you to bring the faculty into your discussions about how credit is reviewed.  I would also caution against naming specific accreditors in your policies and procedures.  It's one thing to accept HLC credit at face value because we share an accreditor.  However, I would think about what rationale you would give for privileging credit from formerly-regional accreditors.  The USDE considers credit from formerly-nationally accredited institutions to be equivalent, so I think it's difficult to make the argument that, for instance, an institution will accept SACS-COC credit at face value but require a different standard of review for ACCSC credit.  If your transfer policy is basically just to accept credit the way you always have but naming specific accreditors instead of using the terms "regional" or "national," I think that could put your institution in jeopardy because there is no basis for the unequal treatment.  Remember that accepting the credit is not always the same as applying the coursework toward a student's academic program.  It's still true that a great deal of credit may still transfer in as electives, especially if the student attended a vocationally-focused college.  The last think I'll say in this email on the subject is that I understand there will be trepidation about variation among State System institutions; however, I'll point out that this has always been the case with transfer credit from nationally-accredited institutions.  In the end, the best thing I can advise is that you have a published policy with a rationale you can point to that shows why it makes sense to evaluate transfer credit in the way you do.



  1.  ACT Superscoring

This was not part of my presentation, but we learned earlier this week that ACT will begin providing superscores to students who have taken more than one test since September 2016 (Read the Release from ACT News & Blog<https://leadershipblog.act.org/2021/04/act-superscoring-now-available.html?cid=email:marketo:bau-media-thought-leadership-and-advocacy--:dc_1740-internal-organic-040221-mr019858-button&utm_medium=email&utm_source=marketo&utm_campaign=bau-media-thought-leadership-and-advocacy--&utm_content=dc_1740-internal-organic-040221-mr019858-button&mkt_tok=MDM1LUVaUi05NTkAAAF8MhIl3Jt7BJROxcux_630jM8PpuBBLerqonEkFuP1DLaF_rOE1kSXjjvpz87FxkG3cgnapsgi-ZpNGeMy3TOrorU1MwOPtBtoiMHmYjGp4ivIOg>).  I know some of you have been calculating your own superscores for admissions purposes based on guidance contained in a memo from Chancellor Johnson to State System presidents on February 9.  Please note that, per that guidance, institutional calculations of superscores was only to occur until ACT began providing these scores.  In accordance with the specific provisions of the Institutional Admission and Retention policy, State System intuitions should now utilize the score provided by ACT and cease calculating the scores locally.  This helps to ensure consistency systemwide in which scores are used for admissions purposes.

If I can answer any more questions, always please feel free to reach out to me.  For those who celebrate the holiday, I hope you have the happiest of Easters and that everyone has an enjoyable weekend!

Kyle

Kyle Foster, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
655 Research Parkway, Suite 200 | Oklahoma City, OK 73104<https://goo.gl/maps/nMc3YG81uo72>
P: +1 405 225 9163 | F: +1 405 225 9300 | E: kfoster at osrhe.edu<mailto:kfoster at osrhe.edu>

[cid:image004.jpg at 01D71978.0F77D340]<http://okhighered.org/>      [cid:image005.png at 01D71978.0F77D340] <https://www.ok.gov/>

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